noun
apostrophe
An address to an absent person or to something treated as a person.
The poet used apostrophe to address the moon.
Etymology
The pieces suggest turning away. In rhetoric, the speaker turns from the ordinary audience to address someone absent, or something imagined as capable of hearing.
More examples
- An apostrophe to the absent friend opened the elegy.
- The speech included an apostrophe to future generations.
- The critic explained the poem's apostrophe to Death.
Forms
apostrophe · apostrophes
Similar words
- address
- Address can be directed to anyone; literary apostrophe addresses an absent or personified listener.
- personification
- Personification gives human qualities to something; apostrophe speaks directly to it or to someone absent.